FG sacks Perm Secs, Directors over job racketeering — Minister

Some top civil service officials have been dismissed by the federal government for extorting money from 400 applicants and offering them employment illegally.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said yesterday in Lagos during a meeting with some selected on-air-personalities in an ongoing five-day consultation with critical stakeholders in the media industry.
Also, the minister said the IPPIS, used to capture the biodata of civil servants enabling payment of salaries and other entitlements through a central system, was not only faulty but had been compromised by unscrupulous elements.
Mohammed said the affected officers were on grade level 17 in one of the Parastatals in the ministry. He said the officers had included the names of the applicants in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System (IPPIS) before the fraud was discovered.
“The first scandal I met in one of the Parastatals when I assumed office was the illegal employment of 400 people. This scandal started with very senior officers up to level 17 in that department. They sent out letters and text messages asking people to apply for jobs for a fee of N400, 000 and they were given letters of employment.
“They did not stop there. They invited these people to go and be captured on the IPPIS and they even took cameras to hotels to get them captured. At the end of the day, the bubble burst. One of the victims told these officials, you cannot take my money and still disengage me. I have a valid letter.
“That is how we got to know that there was a dedicated account these people paid to. Of course, we dismissed these officials and we even handed them over to the Police, “the minister said.
He said the federal government was working to ensure that the IPPIS was tamper-proof as well as make it impossible for unscrupulous elements who might want to load ghost workers on it to achieve their aim.
Nigerian Pilot Sunday recalls that the last administration had introduced the IPPIS in the civil service to curb incidences of ghost workers to save millions of naira usually paid to non-existing staff on government payroll.